


In the Bleak Midwinter

by Ashura



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: Christmas, First Time, M/M, Post-Canon, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-04
Updated: 2011-01-04
Packaged: 2017-10-14 10:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashura/pseuds/Ashura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He set aside the pile of undergraduate essays he'd been marking, leaning against the window to stare out of it for a while, watching Wales unfold welcoming before him. At least, he mused, that was how it felt – like the prodigal son returning to his father's fold. It was different from going home, where he could feel the fields of Buckinghamshire folding around him whenever he went back to see his parents, but it was similar, too. I know you, the land seemed to say. I remember you. You belong here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Bleak Midwinter

The train clattered merrily over the tracks. The afternoon sun spread a glare over the smudged, cloudy window, but through it Will could still see the vivid green expanse of the mid Wales fields, light with frost and dotted with the comically fluffy forms of grazing sheep. Here and there were groves of trees, bare of leaves, stretching naked branches over the curves of hedgerows and rippling rivers. The occasional car could be seen riding the road through the valley, and behind it the rolling mountains grew, rising protectively over the farmland below.

He set aside the pile of undergraduate essays he'd been marking, leaning against the window to stare out of it for a while, watching Wales unfold welcoming before him. At least, he mused, that was how it felt – like the prodigal son returning to his father's fold. It was different from going home, where he could feel the fields of Buckinghamshire folding around him whenever he went back to see his parents, but it was similar, too. _I know you_ , the land seemed to say. _I remember you. You belong here._ Wisps of mare's tails hovered in the sky above the green rise of a hill, a small stone house nestled at the base. Even the train, Will thought, seemed more eager now that the grey industrial landscape of the midlands was behind them.

He might, he supposed, be projecting just a _little_. And there was a part of him which, for all his excitement, was also a little nervous. It had been April the last time he'd seen Bran – spring holidays, when he'd been able to get away, though it was the end of lambing season and his friend hadn't been able to spare too much time. He'd done the best he could, which meant Will spent a good portion of his holiday riding all over north Wales in Bran's car. It had been worth it. He'd stayed at a little bed and breakfast on the road that passed Tal y Llyn, had booked it before he'd even told Bran he was coming. _I thought I'd take a holiday,_ he'd said, _and it seemed like a good place to get away. Will I be able to see you?_ Bran had sounded surprised, and told Will that staying somewhere else when he had perfectly good family and friends to visit was ridiculous, but that of course he'd make time. Will said he didn't want to impose, and Bran said something in Welsh that Will rather expected was unflattering.

But Will had his reasons. He _had_ needed a holiday. It had been about a month following the messy and painful breakup of what had been a whirlwind affair with a visiting Fellow, an American named Cory who wrote about Beat literature and jazz music and had opened Will's eyes in a whole variety of ways. Will, for all his knowledge and experience in the ways and workings of the universe, had been wholly unprepared to fall head over heels for anyone at all, let alone a boy who still spiked his hair and wore a leather motorcycle jacket to the Bodleian Library. But his stomach had tied itself in knots when Cory winked at him, and all his neural processes shut down when Cory had kissed him drunkenly in the passage near the Lamb and Flag one night after a particularly potent serving of cider. Will had always thought himself open-minded, but had suffered a bit of a crisis at that point, which Cory had nursed him through in an intoxicating and thoroughly convincing fashion.

That had been October, and three months of abject happiness had followed. Things had started to change after Christmas, and then there'd been fights Will still didn't entirely understand the origin of. They started avoiding each other. Will moped in his room. They tried to make up. Something was gone, something they couldn't get back, and Cory had been agonisingly gentle about finally breaking it off. Will had just wanted to get away so he didn't have to be reminded all the time.

But having realised important things about one's self, it is impossible to go back to how things had been before. Will supposed he had always been a little bit in love with Bran, and felt that his first instinct upon having his heart broken was to run back to him really just confirmed it. He did not want to stay with Bran, because he felt he'd been tortured quite enough already. He was still in that place where he needed a sanctuary of his own.

None of this had come out until his visit was nearly over. He had gone with Bran late in the evening to a farm outside Machynlleth, where an ewe, pregnant with twin lambs, was having difficulty birthing. The whole thing had taken hours, and Will had made himself useful carting water, blankets, and hot cups of tea between the farmhouse and the barn. The birthing was messy and noisy, and Bran's white arms were covered in blood and afterbirth to the elbows when it had finished. He was terribly calm the entire time, and Will watched his quiet competence and remembered how sure of himself Bran could be even when he was only a boy.

Once they'd cleaned themselves up, they got in the car, an old black Land Rover with a grating on the back that always smelled a bit like wet dog. Bran had turned off the road on the way back to Will's hotel and gone up a narrow track through the mountains that came out at a very small car park and the beginning of a trail. He parked the car, turned off the key, and turned to look at Will. The moonlight was very bright, the shadows stretching out over the muddy ground.

“Now then,” Bran said, in the same calm tone he'd just been using to calm the distressed sheep. “Maybe you want to tell me what's going on?”

“I don't know what you mean,” Will said, but his stomach was sinking, because he really very much did. And Bran, who was too perceptive for his – or Will's – own good, just narrowed his strange golden eyes and raised one eyebrow, and didn't turn the car back on, and waited.

So Will had told him. It was a relief in a way to be coaxed to, and at that moment, safe in the car with the mountains folding in around them, it hadn't felt like anything could go wrong. He told Bran about Cory, about being gay and afraid of what that meant, about getting up the courage to tell his family over Christmas dinner only to have it all start falling apart two weeks later, about fights he didn't understand, about being lonely. He talked and talked, and when he finished he felt raw and wrung out and, surprisingly, a bit better.

Bran was quiet for a long moment, and then said slowly, as if he wasn't sure just what emotion to inflect the words with, “You didn't tell _me_. Any of it.”

Will's stomach sank into his knees somewhere, and he was afraid suddenly he'd done something very wrong. “No,” he agreed. “I'm sorry. Should I have?”

“Oh, Will.” Bran muttered something else under his breath, but Will couldn't tell if it was in Welsh, or just too soft and mumbled for him to make out. “I do know what lonely feels like, you know. I would have understood.”

Will felt more wretched than ever. “Yes,” he said quietly, “I suppose you would. I'm sorry.”

Bran shrugged. “You don't have to be. I just keep thinking – we've been friends now for fifteen years, and you still do not tell me things. It doesn't count, Will, if you only remember I am here when you need a place to escape to.”

Will curled around himself, pulling his feet up onto the edge of the Land Rover's passenger seat, wrapping his arms around his knees. “I know,” he said quietly. “I've been a rubbish friend, I should have told you. I do think about you other times, truly.”

Bran looked at him in silence for a moment, the moonlight through the car window glinting off his pale skin. He looked strange, half in shadow, as if he might fade into the air at any moment. “Well then,” he said quietly at last, and started the car engine again. “It's all right, I suppose. Don't look so wretched, I'm not leaving you, just taking you home. I'll pick you up in the morning and we'll go to the sea if the weather's decent. Take your mind off things.”

“All right,” Will said, and that had been the end of it. Bran had always got over things quickly when he was able to give voice to them, and this was no different. He had said his piece, and did not need to dwell on it. They said no more about it, until two days later, when Bran was driving Will back to Tywyn to catch the train home. They sat in the car park, rain clattering against the windscreen.

“I've been thinking,” Bran said, slowly and a little too casually.

“Don't strain yourself,” Will said, and immediately wished he hadn't. He'd been thrown by the seriousness in Bran's voice and wanted to keep things normal, but he could already see it was not that sort of conversation.

“Hush,” Bran sniffed. He slipped his dark glasses off his face, toying with the earpiece in one hand, regarding Will. solemnly. Then he leaned across the car toward Will, for whom everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, and kissed him.

Will had not expected it, would not have known what _to_ expect if he had. He had imagined a number of versions of this scenario over the last few weeks, but the reality was both less and more at once. It was a quick kiss, mostly symbolic; Bran's lips met Will's, pressed there briefly, but did not linger, did not demand or ask for more. But it was real, and that, Will found, made a considerable difference. It was a quick kiss, but more than he had hoped for.

“Well,” he said, and swallowed. “Dare I ask what you were thinking _about_ , there?”

Bran slipped the glasses back on. “Don't be daft,” he said. “And don't stay away so long, if you want to have the rest of the conversation. I'm still thinking, mind.”

Will groaned. “You make no sense sometimes, you know.”

Bran just grinned at him. It made Will's stomach twist into an odd complicated knots like the ones on shards of iron age pottery. “So I'm told. Now go on, or you'll miss your train.”

And so Will had gone home to Oxford, in a bit of a daze, thinking about the soft brush of Bran's lips.

At first, once the immediate shock wore off, he'd been frustrated at Bran's waiting until the absolute very last moment to say he'd been doing any thinking about Will at all. It seemed like a colossal waste. But as he settled back into his routine – somewhat modified for a once-again single lifestyle – where he once again saw Cory, and where reminders of their relationship faced him at every corner, he realised Bran might have been more canny than he'd let on. The promise, the hint that there might be something more, distracted Will from moping, but the distance between himself and Bran made him consider seriously what might happen between them. Will did not want his heart broken again, and he did not want to lose his oldest friend. He was only too conscious of how wrong things could turn. So he spent months imagining, considering, wondering, determining whether he really, really wanted to pursue something with Bran, to see if there could be more between them.

It didn’t really matter how much considering he did; the answer was always the same. Of course he wanted Bran. He just wanted to make sure he did it _right_. He wasn’t sure what that would mean – would one of them have to move? Could Bran even be convinced to? If not, could Will? They both had established jobs, lives, routines. Could they make it work long-distance? For how long? And maybe, just maybe, Will was getting ahead of himself. One quick kiss good-bye in a car park, and he was trying to plan the rest of their lives. At the very least, he should probably include Bran in the conversation.

So he rang up, after spending a good half hour talking himself into it, and asked Bran if he could come out for a while at Christmas. Bran had said of course, but not if he got any silly ideas into his head like staying anywhere other than with Bran, at his house, and Will’s stomach clenched up and he promised he had no such silly ideas. When he got off the phone, he sat with his hands shaking and the feeling that something huge and momentous was occurring. He still wasn’t sure if he’d been making it up.

He’d spent the next few weeks tense and excited, without being able to explain to anyone why. He expected his mother had guessed some of it, when he said he wouldn’t be home until Christmas Eve because he’d be going to Wales for his birthday, but she kept her peace. He thought the previous year, and his announcement, was still fairly fresh in her mind.

Then as the end of term drew closer, he started fretting about what to pack. And what to get Bran for Christmas. And if he should get a haircut. In the end he dithered so long there was no time to worry about any of it. He threw a bottle of wine into his bag with a few randomly-selected jumpers, papers to be marked, and a book he was meant to review by the end of the exam period and dashed for a train he very nearly missed.

But he hadn’t missed it. The train rattled along the tracks as the slope of the mountains dwindled, the boggy banks of the Dyfi estuary stretching out along one side. Will watched it with a quiet nostalgia and a twist in his stomach. The land that had once been sunk beneath the water there was gone now, crumbled with the Dark’s last rising, but the remains of the sunken prehistoric forest jutted in jagged rows of naked trees from the surface of the water. He stared out the window until it gave way to the high-beached fishing boats of Aberdyfi. Here it was, then – the truth of why Will had been such an inconsistent correspondent for Bran in the past. It was too strange, seeing things through two sets of eyes at once, as a young man and an Old One. Whatever else he shared with Bran, there would remain one thing forever lost between them. In Oxford, Will felt he could face it. In Wales, with the ancient hills of Gwynedd rising fierce and wild on all sides, he was no longer so sure.

He stepped off the train in Tywyn to a nearly-empty platform. The few other passengers disembarking – a university-aged girl and a family laden with shopping bags, all talking in animated Welsh – vanished almost instantly, leaving Will alone.

“Taller than I remember you, _bachgen_.” An old man, small and wizened with grey tufts of hair wisping out from beneath his railway cap, leaned on a cane as he hobbled down the platform with far more speed than should have been possible. Will couldn’t help the grin that spread across his face. He didn’t know the man’s name, but he recognised him; he’d thought him old even when he was a boy of eleven and first set foot in the station. “Waiting for Dr Davies this time, isn’t it?” he asked, his voice low and lilting in the way Will had come to associate with the area. “He’ll be a bit late, but it’s no fault of his. Bit of a bad mess with one of the horses up at Llanfihangel, but he’ll get here when he can, I’m sure. Why don’t you come in the station house and have a warm cuppa till he does? Can’t have you waiting out here in the snow forever.”

“Oh – thank you,” Will said awkwardly, but followed him inside. Another man, only a little older than Will and leaning against the wall in a railway jacket, nodded a greeting at him. The gnome, as Will couldn’t help still thinking of him, said something in rapid-fire Welsh and he gave up leaning and turned to light a small corner hob and put on the kettle.

“Waiting for Bran, he says, is it?” he called over his shoulder.

“Yes,” Will said politely, wondering how many people whose names he didn’t know were acquainted with his holiday plans. “That’s right.”

“We were at school together,” the man explained. “ _Ysgol Uwchradd_ , just up the road here. I’m Tom Williams, he was in my sister’s year. Milk and sugar?”

It took Will a second to follow and catch up with that, but he nodded. “Yes, please.” Unsure if he was supposed to add something to the rest of the conversation, he added, “I’m an old friend of Bran’s from when we were kids. I came to stay with my uncle up at Clwyd Farm some holidays.”

“Ah, so that’s it, is it!” Tom’s face broke into an easy smile, and Will realised that he’d been looking to find a connection between them, rather than just make small talk. “I wondered how it was old Dai recognised you, but he’s an eye for faces, that one.”

“He must,” Will said dryly. “I was eleven.”

“Same look about you,” said the gnome, who by now Will realised must be ‘old Dai’. “Lost and faraway, but like you’re coming home at the same time. No, _bachgen_ , these hills and I, we do not forget so much.” He fixed Will with a piercing look that made the Old One shift uncomfortably, only too glad when Tom set a hot cup of tea in front of him.

He was even more relieved when, halfway through the second cup, Bran’s Land Rover pulled into the car park. Will saw him leap out, wrapped warm in a duffel coat with a hat pulled low, and after a quick look around the platform, he slipped in the door just as Will was getting his coat on again.

“ _S’mae_ Dai, Tom. _Diolch am gadw fo_. Are you ready, Will? Sorry to keep you waiting.” Bran swung Will’s bag onto his shoulder and headed back out to the car park. Will tied his green-and-silver Jesus College scarf tight around his neck and followed him back into the cold.

Bran lived in a detached farmhouse not far from where he’d grown up, nearly under the slopes of Craig yr Aderyn. The road to reach it was narrow, rutted, and nearly impassable, and Will gripped the edges of his seat as the Land Rover hurtled over the ice-frosted furrows. The first time he had come this way, his cousin Rhys driving through a late October rainstorm, he had found it closed-in and threatening, but the menace of the Grey King had gone as well, and it seemed welcoming, now. The house itself was one of the small slate buildings common to the area, set back only a little from the road by a short grey fence. The black and white sheepdogs, Rhyd and Awen, raced up to meet them, sniffing at Will with their tails wagging eagerly. A ginger barn cat peered at him suspiciously from the roof, then leapt away onto a treebranch and disappeared.

“Don’t mind her,” Bran said dismissively. “She’ll be friendly as anything later when you’re by the fire and she wants attention. Come on, then.” He led Will inside. The house was neat and pleasant, if not especially full of character; except for the tall harp in one corner it looked like any one of a hundred other houses that could be occupied by any of a hundred other people. Bran took him to a small neat guest room in the back and set down the case. “Do you mind if I get a shower, before I do anything else? It’s been a rough afternoon, I barely feel human. Make yourself at home, though – go rummage through the kitchen and help yourself, and I’ll only be a moment.”

“Of course,” Will said. Bran disappeared then, and he took a moment to look around the room. It was comfortable if generic: bed covered in a patchwork quilt, wardrobe, a triptych of black and white photographs of Welsh farm life on one wall. He looked a bit closer at one of them, of a thin white strip of road curving into the shadows of the mountains, and saw a very small ‘BD’ written in one corner of the matting. Perhaps not completely generic after all, then.

He emptied his suitcase into the wardrobe and headed back into the kitchen. He’d had enough tea, but the sandwich he’d bought off the train trolley was a distant memory and his stomach was growling. A bit of fresh bread and butter took the edge off, but he thought, from how tired Bran had looked, he might as well make himself useful and get started making dinner. After a bit of foraging he found some vegetables, sausages, and potatoes, and started in.

“You found everything all right, then.” Bran was leaning against the doorframe, and sounded amused. “Not that I’m objecting, mind. Far from it.”

“I thought I’d make myself useful.” Will turned to flash him a grin, only momentarily stopped by the sight of the man he was fairly certain he was in love with fresh out of the shower in a damp t-shirt. “I hope you weren’t saving them for anything special.”

Bran laughed. “More special than this? Not bloody likely. What do you want me to do, then?”

“Keep me company,” Will answered. “Tell me about your day. Mine was dull, I spent the whole thing on the train. And does everyone in the valley know I’ve come to visit?”

“Probably,” Bran shrugged, unapologetic. “I had to give old Dai a ring once I knew I’d be late to get you, but I expect it’d be all over by now anyway. Everyone knows everyone else’s business here. You’d best get used to it.”

Will looked up sharply from the potatoes he was peeling. “Great, thanks.”

Bran squeezed his shoulder; it was the first real contact between them since Will had arrived. “Be glad they don’t know the real reason you’ve come. Are you sure you don’t want any help?”

“It’s potatoes,” Will pointed out. “I can manage, honestly. What do you mean the real reason?”

Bran sat down in one of the white kitchen chairs and watched him. “I think,” he said, “that is for you to tell me. But after dinner, maybe. You wanted to hear about the day that you missed. I had nothing planned but tidying up before I went to get you, but one of Angharad Jones’ horses had a spook of something, and tried to run through the fence. So I was stitching the terrified thing back together, when you got in, and that is why I was late. And why I am tired and have a bit of a headache, now. It’s not quite the welcome I meant for you.”

“It’s all right,” Will said earnestly, leaning against the cupboard, his elbow on the worktop, paused in his peeling. “I’m just glad to be here at last. We’ve got days. And anyway, all I did was mark essays and stare out the window, so you sit, I’ll cook, and anything else we’ll worry about after.” It all sounded quite simple when he heard himself say it, even the nebulous ‘anything else’ that neither of them had really broached yet. He couldn’t help wondering what welcome Bran _had_ planned, before an emergency had dragged him away. He wondered if there were ever days where nothing dragged Bran away at all.

They chatted as he cooked, and while the conversation never quite strayed to anything too substantial, it was comfortable, familiar, far from the awkward small-talk he was used to with people he hadn’t seen in months. There was something so domestic and easy about it that Will felt as if he had been part of Bran’s routine his whole life, instead of a fairly recent interpolation. By the time they’d finished the sausages, he thought he knew enough about the people in the valley that he may as well have been, too.

They opened Will’s bottle and abandoned the kitchen to sit on the battered sofa in front of the fire. Bran handed Will a glass and tapped his own lightly against it. “ _Iechyd da_ ,” he said lightly. “I am glad you came, Will.”

“So am I,” Will admitted. “I've been thinking about it for ages. Ever since I left last time, in fact.”

“Good,” Bran said, smiling just a little, enigmatic. “That was the idea.” He turned a little on the sofa to look at Will in frank appraisal. Will saw the firelight reflecting in his golden eyes. “What conclusion did you come to, then?”

Will's gaze flickered down toward his hands, and he said, “I'm here, aren't I?”

Bran rested his hand on Will's knee, and Will had did not think he had ever been so conscious of anything in his life. “True. That's a start.”

Will laughed, and covered Bran's hand with his own. “You don't want to know the rest, honestly. Not yet, anyway. I jump a bit ahead of myself, sometimes.”

“I see.” Will thought he could detect a glimmer of laughter in Bran's eyes. “And you think we should continue to take things at the glacial pace we've already established, is that it?”

“It's not glacial!” Will protested, but even as he said it he realised it wasn't true. Maybe being an immortal had led him to take a certain long-term view, but he couldn't very well say that. “Anyway there's a middle ground, I'm sure.”

Bran twisted round to set his glass down. “You're probably right,” he agreed, and then he'd turned back and his eyes were on Will's again, gold and intense, and Will could scarcely breathe. “What did you have in mind?”

Will wanted to kiss him so desperately he ached with it, but he didn't. He would never know, for the rest of his life, what held him back. “I,” he began, and faltered.

“Oh, Will,” Bran sighed, and kissed him. It was not like the last time. Bran's hand cupped Will's cheek and slid around to the back of his neck. The taste of the wine clung to his lips, which met Will's with a gentle firmness that made his knees weak. It was neither urgent nor shy, but merely experimental; Bran's tongue slipped between Will's lips to explore his mouth and it made Will whimper and reach out to pull him close. Oh, he'd wanted this so much, for so long, and even this small initial contact was perfectly, exactly as he'd hoped. Bran was warm and solid, lean and wiry, and his white hair brushed against Will's cheek. Only after he had conducted a thorough exploration of Will's mouth did he break away, leaning back just a little, long pale fingers twisting absently in a bit of Will's hair.

“Is that why you came?” he asked.

“Yes,” Will answered. His eyes fluttered closed as Bran's fingers brushed his neck. “...I meant to get that cut.”

Bran shrugged. “I think it suits you.” He settled back into the corner of the sofa and reached for his wine glass again. “Are you over Cory?”

The moment of confusion Will had trying to recall why anyone else would be relevant to the conversation must have spoken for him, because by the time he stammered out an answer, Bran was very nearly laughing at him. “Yes. I mean, it's a little sore, still,” he admitted. “I don't know how long that takes to go away. I miss him every so often. But it stopped hurting all the time a while ago.”

“Good,” Bran said firmly. He'd gone back to resting his hand on Will's leg again, thumb stroking lightly over his knee. The smile he turned on Will was conspiratorial, almost shy; it made him look younger. “I think we are off to a good start, then.”

Will grinned at him, giddily. He would wonder later why he hadn't used the opportunity to ask for similar assurances, and come to the conclusion that his subconscious trusted Bran so implicitly that somehow he didn't find them necessary. “Does that mean you'll kiss me again?”

Bran let out a bright, sharp burst of laughter. “We are two and zero, Will. I think it might be your turn to kiss _me_.”

“Oh,” said Will, and blushed, and did.

Over the next few days, they did quite a lot more of it—having begun, it seemed impossible to stop. Oh, it wasn't _all_ they did, and the days in the lead-up to Christmas were filled with what Bran referred to, with a fair amount of affection, as 'twee Victorian rubbish' and Will called 'being in the Christmas spirit.' They found, bought, and trimmed a Christmas tree, drank pots of mulled wine, and ate a prodigious amount of mince pies mostly made by Will's aunt Jen. The night before Will's birthday, the whole lot of them went to a carol service in the chapel in Abergynolwyn. Uncle David had not changed much in Will's entire memory of him; though his hair was thinning a little his eyes had lost none of their dreaminess. Aunt Jen was stouter and her hair was streaked with silver, but her eyes, too, were unchanged. It was in John Rowlands and Owen Davies that Will felt had been wrought the most change, and he felt uncomfortably guilty whenever he acknowledged it. It seemed like they had both faded over time, tired, wearing into unsaturated colours as if they would, in time, become part of the landscape.

They sat all in a row in the back of the chapel while the preacher, a small neat man with a round face and bright dark eyes, read and spoke in Welsh. Will could understand, if he listened as an Old One, and he alternated between that and just sitting quiet and comfortable, letting the sounds of the musical old language wash over him and watching Bran out the corner of his eye. He had a feeling Bran wasn't really listening either, but whenever it was time for a hymn his posture would change, and he would sing in a clear baritone that was somehow both captivating and not quite what Will expected. Their voices blended well, he thought, the way he and James used to. Will found himself falling easily into the four-part harmonies the group managed with seemingly little effort; the words may be in Welsh but the melodies were familiar.

“You can sing in English if you'd rather,” Bran had told him earlier that day, as they were donning coats and hats and preparing to leave. “It doesn't really hurt these songs to have them in more than language at once.”

“It's all right,” Will promised. “If I have the words in front of me I can manage well enough not to embarrass you, I think. You've been telling me how to pronounce things for ages, anyway. Besides,” he added, reaching for Bran's hand, “it's probably about time I learned it all properly.”

Bran looked gratified, but sniffed. “I suppose it is, at that,” he said loftily, but then he pulled Will in close to kiss him.

So Will stood in the chapel next to Bran and sang _O deuwch ac addolwn_ instead of the words he already knew, and felt strangely peaceful. He'd always found a certain amount of tranquility in church singing; it reminded him of far-earlier days before he even knew there was a Light and Dark, let alone his part in the battle between them. There was something timeless about it, and for a few moments, measures, the length of a song, it didn't feel as if he were split between times and places that could never coexist except within him. The congregation sang as if they'd been harmonising together their whole lives, and really, Will supposed some of them had. Afterward there were mince pies and mulled wine, and he could taste both of them still on Bran's lips when they stumbled back into the house.

By morning it had snowed again, thick and heavy, so that the drifts kept the front door closed and covered the Land Rover up to the top of the tyres. Will shuffled out of his room and into the kitchen, where Bran was making tea in his dressing gown.

“ _Bore da_ ,” said Will, who was starting to get in the habit. And then said hopefully, “Tea?”

“ _Penblwydd hapus, cariad_ ,” Bran said, laughing, and handed him a cup. “Happy birthday.” Will set the cup aside and leaned up to kiss him sweetly. He liked the way wisps of Bran's white hair poked up in fluffy angles and all directions, before he combed it in the mornings, and found it nearly impossible to resist kissing Bran when he saw it. Bran chuckled and tousled Will's hair too. “Sit, I'll do breakfast. I have bad news for you, though—or good, depending on how you look at it,” he amended cautiously, as if making it into good news was a possibly dodgy prospect. “Dai's rung up to check on you. There'll be no trains till after Boxing Day. Too much damage on the tracks.”

Will was quiet. He had been looking forward to Christmas at home with his family, but the idea of spending it holed up in the house with Bran wasn't exactly unwelcome either. He wondered if the sudden blizzard was really pure coincidence. And then he said, “Oh,” and “well, that's all right,” because Bran was looking nervously at him.

“We can try to figure something out,” Bran said hesitantly, as if he wasn't yet sure what that something might be, “if you're really set to be home. The snow is ghastly, but I don’t know how the roads are past Dolgellau.”

Will shook his head, reaching for Bran's hand to tug him in close. “Don't be silly, of course it's all right. Though I'm short a few presents.”

Bran laughed at that, planting a kiss on the top of Will's head. “Oh, don't worry about that,” he assured, the tension melting out of his body. “We'll sort something out, but that's not the important part, anyway.” He straightened, pulling away and turning back to the bowl of half-beaten eggs he'd abandoned when Will came in the room. “We might have to keep to the house today, which will change the plans for your birthday a bit, but we'll make the best of it.”

“Honestly,” Will said, watching Bran fondly, “I don't mind. It’s a nice way to spend a birthday, holed up here with you.”

And it had been. After breakfast they’d bundled up and gone outside for a walk in the snow, which ended with Bran starting a snowball fight he wasn’t able to win—Will comforted him by pointing out that the youngest of nine children had little choice but to learn to defend himself in such confrontations, and then by making him tea. The sky, clear as of mid-morning, clouded over again by lunchtime and they curled up on the settee to watch the flakes fall like great fluffy flower petals through the window. The ginger cat, Heledd, decided that if Will was going to be a permanent addition to the area then he should lavish on her the worship that was clearly her due, and claimed his lap for a good portion of the afternoon. Will was as content as he could remember being in ages. Bran cooked dinner and then proceeded to make up for his humiliating snowball fight defeat by trouncing Will roundly at Risk. Bran, it turned out, was well-suited for world domination.

And then, when it was late enough the little house was starting to get cold and Rhyd was stretched out in front of the fireplace breathing quiet doggy snores, instead of kissing Bran goodnight and going to bed, Will swallowed and held his hand and asked him quietly, “Do you want to come with me, then?”

Bran only looked a little bit surprised, and that only for a moment. “Of course,” he said, and then neither of them moved for a few long seconds. Will felt suddenly as if the moment had grown far beyond the confines of the little slate farmhouse, something huge and cosmic and dizzying. And then Bran’s tawny eyes squinted at him, and he tapped Will on the nose. “Not the time for wool-gathering, _cariad_ ,” he said, and the moment was over. There were more important things at hand, things that made Will’s body twist up more than his mind, and he pulled Bran after him.

There was still something a little awkward in the way they touched. They were still learning each other, after all. Bran’s long deft fingers slid open the buttons of Will’s shirt without ever quite managing to linger against his skin for more than a second, which frustrated Will and enticed him at once. The removal of each successive article of clothing provoked a pause, a moment’s self-conscious admiration, a reassuring kiss. Will could hear Bran’s breath going shallow and ragged, felt it hitch when he let his fingers slide over the pale silky skin. Bran looked as Will had pictured him, but the reality of touching him was so much more, and the reality of _being_ touched was greater yet. Will thought, as the clock ticked on relentlessly through his birthday night, that it had taken far longer than should have been necessary to reach a point that seemed such a natural conclusion—and then he kissed Bran pleadingly and pulled him down onto the bed, and thought about very little at all. If he had, he might not have had the courage to do all he did. Bran was warm and willing but made no claims to experience; Will’s own had been limited. He felt rather as if he were fumbling along like a schoolboy, but his confidence grew as his actions drew sharp gasps and moans from Bran that were impossible not to respond to. Inexpert they may be, but no less ardent for it, all kisses and touches and a tangle of limbs and blankets. The soft, shaky cry Bran made as he came was the most beautiful sound Will had ever heard, and it was only moments before he echoed it.

Bran kissed him, lying still, catching his breath. Will curled around him. This part had always been a bit awkward. Cory would usually lean out the window with a cigarette and they’d both lay low and hope nobody realised they were both there. Here, with the silence of snowfall outside and the security of the farmhouse’ slate walls, it felt like the world was theirs alone.

Bran reached up to stroke Will’s hair, toying almost absently with his ear. “Happy birthday, _cariad_ ,” he said, yawning.

“And here I thought you didn’t get me anything,” Will teased, too tired and sated and happy to move. He could feel the easy rhythm of Bran’s heartbeat thumping solidly against his ear.

Bran chuckled, a low joyful sound that tickled Will’s cheek. “I meant to. Couldn’t get out. I suppose we’ll have to improvise.” His fingers carded lightly through Will’s hair. “The old kings of Wales used to give out boons to worthy visitors on Christmas Day. It probably started out being midwinter, anyway. All poetic license, of course.”

“Of course,” Will agreed, a little too hastily.

Bran said quietly, “What’s your wish, Will?”

It was meant so playfully, so sweetly, but it had the ring of destiny in it, too, and Will’s breath caught in his throat before he could answer. He took too long about it; he could feel some of the tension returning to Bran’s body even through the light, prompting: “I think a hundred cattle or a haircut are the most traditional, but I haven’t got the first, and the second is entirely at your own risk.”

Abruptly, Will knew the answer. He laced his fingers through Bran’s and lifted his head to smile at him. “Just what I already have in my hand,” he said. Softly, like ritual.

“It’s yours,” Bran promised, in just the same tone. It seemed serious, even though it wasn’t meant to be.

“...and maybe a little more snow,” Will added, for good measure. “Otherwise we’ve only got five more days.”

“Daft,” Bran muttered, but kissed him.

It was some time later that they rose, cleaned themselves up, and retreated together to Bran’s bed instead. A disgruntled Heledd stalked off after being evicted from the very middle of the duvet, and Bran kissed Will after pulling him back into his arms. Will could feel him drifting off, the breath against his cheek evening and slowing, and found himself grateful again for the snow. He’d been looking forward to going home, but now the idea of not waking up on Christmas morning this way, next to Bran in bed, was inconceivable. As was any path that didn’t lead to a lifetime of this, and Will felt the most comforting confidence that whatever forces were still at work in the universe would fall in their favour. It was the simplest things, sometimes, that made the answers all seem so clear.

The cat, having noticed that the humans had stopped moving, leapt back onto the bed.

“Five days,” Will told her, “but I’ll be back.” She looked at him, unimpressed, then flicked her tail and curled up on the duvet.

A Christmas now, and a lifetime after. As he listened to Heledd’s purring meld into the soft rhythm of Bran’s sleeping breath, Will was sure of it. And outside, the snow kept falling, coating the ancient hills in timeless, pristine white.

 


End file.
